Losing can be contagious, and the football team is well aware of that fact. The Blue Devils hope to rid themselves of this illness, and soon.
Entering tonight's 8 p.m. prime time game against Georgia Tech, Duke has lost 10 of its last 11 games dating back to last year. In addition, the Blue Devils have had only four days to prepare for the Yellow Jackets.
"We suffered a disappointing defeat to Army last week, but the blessing behind that is that we didn't have too much time sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves with the Thursday night game coming up," Duke coach Fred Goldsmith said. "We needed to stick together, and what better way to do that than by practicing. We have been so busy that we have not really had time to be sorry for ourselves."
If they had, the Blue Devils might have noticed some of the dubious numbers they have put up thus far this season. Duke has struggled in almost every area on the football field.
¥ Duke is off to its worst start in 13 years after having fallen to 0-3 with a 35-17 loss to Army last Saturday.
¥ Not one Duke rusher has more than 100 yards rushing on the season. Junior Laymarr Marshall leads the Blue Devils with 94 yards on 44 carries, a paltry 2.1 yards per attempt. Duke, which has only 160 yards on the ground in three games, is averaging 1.5 yards per carry and ranks dead last in the nation among Division I-A teams in rushing.
¥ The Blue Devils have struggled getting into the end zone this year. Duke has scored only four touchdowns all year, two through the air and two running the football. The Blue Devils are 100 out of 113 Division I-A teams in scoring per game. They have yet to score more than 17 points in a game, and Duke has not led a football game at any point this season.
¥ The Blue Devil defense has given up over 35 points to every opponent it has faced. Duke has reduced the number of points its opponent scores each week, but not at a very fast rate.
¥ The special teams have been anything, but this year, as the Blue Devils have allowed two punt returns for touchdowns. Both scores seemingly broke Duke's back in losses to Florida State and Northwestern.
Still in the face of all the negatives, Goldsmith and the Blue Devils are positive. They realize that they are a young team-41 of 66 members of the traveling squad for last week's Army game are freshmen or sophomores-and they have not yet begun to give up.
"Going in the tank is not anything I worry about with this team," Goldsmith said. "I'm just sick at heart over the way we've started; it tears me up. People try to tell me, 'You're young, and it might be that way.' It doesn't mean I like it and it doesn't mean I'm gonna accept it and everything we can do to find a winning edge-we're gonna work on it."
Tonight's task is a tough one for Duke. The Yellow Jackets (2-1) feature one of the better offenses in the ACC, led by running back C.J. Williams, who ran for over 1,000 yards last year.
But Georgia Tech was shut out last Saturday 16-0 by North Carolina. So both teams will enter tonight's contest hungry. In fact,they are excited about getting the chance to play on national TV.
"I don't dislike the Thursday night game at all," Yellow Jacket coach George O'Leary said. "I like to get right back after it when we lose, and we got right into Duke."
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